


Not Leaving

by rowanthestrange_yugihell



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Minific, Nightmares, Prideshipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-08 03:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10376796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanthestrange_yugihell/pseuds/rowanthestrange_yugihell
Summary: There is a difference between being unable to sleep, and staying awake together.Chapter 1: Seto   |   Chapter 2: Atem





	1. Seto

* * *

  
Seto often wakes in the night.

He doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t move.

But he goes from dreaming to wakefulness in a way that is somehow startling enough to rouse Atem from even the deepest sleep. 

Usually, once he notices he’s awake, Seto will mumble a word. “Him”, “Them”, “You”, and Atem steadily learns. 

“Him.” Don’t touch, but stay close. Seto won’t sleep again that night. He will try to get up and work on a project. Atem will force a book into his hands instead. Seto will acquiesce and sit up in bed to read, while Atem listens to chapter after chapter of audiobook, staring up at the crack in the ceiling as worlds paint themselves in his mind, trying not to fall asleep because it matters that he doesn’t leave him alone, even for the realm of unconsciousness.

“Them.” Clumsy from tiredness, Atem will try and wrap an arm around him. Seto is not a natural cuddler, but Atem will curl around him as much as he can. Seto hasn’t had a lot of experience being small, but on these nights his heart misses it. Atem will wake some time around 4am, his arm in agony, Seto asleep and drooling against his chest. He won’t move, just in case.

“You.” Blinking away his own dream, Atem will reach for his hand, their fingers entwining as Seto’s breathing settles, an intimacy rarely afforded outside of these moments. Atem will whisper to him, his drowsy tongue forming foreign words that no-one beyond this room can understand. Sometimes they don’t sleep those nights either. But for a different reason.

The fourth word is always spoken with a quiver in his voice. Seto’s hands clenched on the sheets, even his breath seeming to shake. Atem will be alert in an instant, pushing himself out of the warm and into the cool room as if just told there was an enemy at the door. He will go around the bed, take Seto’s cold hands and pull him to his feet. They will pad softly into the hall and, if all is quiet, silently open the door across from theirs. Mokuba will be softly snoring, looking less than his 13 years and sound asleep.

Then they will go and get some tea, and sit and wait until the sun rises.

Between the two of them, there is rarely a peaceful night’s sleep. 

But a surprising amount of peaceful nights. 

  



	2. Atem

* * *

  


Atem comes to, rather than wakes. Shadow dissipating from his vision along with the image of teeth around his legs.

He notices things in a strange order. The sheets kicked off the bed. The lamp knocked off the bedside table and dangling by its cord. The anxious boy standing in the doorway.

Atem wants to apologise to Mokuba for waking him up, but his body doesn’t want to listen to his brain, which feels like it’s somewhere slightly to the left of the rest of him. 

The man sat behind him relaxes his grip and he belatedly realises that he’s being held the same way a cat holds a plaything - Seto’s arms wrapped tight around him to keep him still. Even his legs are flung over his own, Seto’s ankles attempting to pin them to the bed. 

Something about the wild thumping from the chest pressed against his back helps pull Atem together again. With the feeling of pieces of him slotting back into place, the shaking starts. And the prickling shame that has him shutting his eyes like a child.

He feels - even if he doesn’t see or hear - Seto mouth “Bed.” to Mokuba. There’s a click of a closing door. 

“What happened?” Atem asks him quietly.

“Some shouting,” So screaming then. 

“Some fighting,” He groans. Please don’t have hurt him this time.

“He’s seen worse from me.” Atem doubts it. Seto has trained himself to handle all nightmares with stillness and silence.

Atem wiggles his arms free and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. His arms and legs ache as if he’s had an afternoon of battle training. Seto disentangles himself and pushes Atem up so he’s sat on his own, righting the lamp and retrieving the blanket from the floor, pulling it around them. 

“That one didn’t even happen.” Atem says bitterly. 

“What could have happened is sometimes worse than what _actually_ happened.” Seto replies, following his train of thought. It’s quite a lot for the two of them. They don’t talk about their dreams. Sometimes though, Seto says something that makes him wonder what exactly it is that he screams in those nightmares, or in the black periods he never remembers. But Atem doesn’t ask.

They sit in silence for a while. He times his breaths with Seto’s deliberately slow and deep ones until he’s passably normal again. 

“Go to sleep.” Atem says. Seto has meetings and work and important things tomorrow. He can’t just crash and fall asleep in a patch of midday sun like he can. But Seto won’t. He never does.

“Drink first.” Comes the reply. The offer of warmth, a taste to wash away the sense memory that sits in his mouth, and an excuse to stay up a little longer. 

If Atem is honest with himself, he can’t face lying awake in the dark just yet. He nods.

  


* * *

  


Atem's crying is entirely silent. His stomach clenched to suppress his sobs, tiny fast breaths through his mouth and eyes tight shut. But Seto seems to have a sixth sense for crying and wakes up anyway. A tentative hand rubs his back.

Neither of them know what to do after these kinds of dreams. For that's what they are, not nightmares - the nightmare only comes when he wakes up.

When he realises that Karim’s fierce protection is not a shout away. That his Father and Shimon’s kindness and council are lost to him. That Shada will never again give him a riddle of his own devising, before confessing days later that he hadn’t yet come up with an answer. That Isis will never coax a smile out of him again with a game, a private feast of sweets, and failing all else, an indelicate joke that has him howling. That Mana will never show him her latest tricks, standing on her hands and making people scowl at her. That Mahad is gone, only visible through a card that now tears at his heart. No more teasing him, no more being taught or caught by him, no more laughing together. 

Seto whispers something and it's like a knife going through him. He knows it's Seto, he knows it is, but he sounds so much like Set it's agony. He turns his face to the pillow and can't keep quiet any more, crying like a child.

Atem is no fool. The chance of a good death, a good burial again is slim. He doesn't know how this works, how Seto managed to break the rules, but they will not bend for Atem yet another time, he feels it in his heart. That world - with the people he loves so much - is forever closed to him. He chose to live and grow and have a second chance. A chance they didn't want to take. It was his decision.

But on these dark nights, he can't help but wonder if it was the right one.

  


* * *

  


He remembers dying. He remembers it again. And again. And again.

It loops in his mind, playing behind his eyes. Even if he closes them.

Again. And again. And again.

There's a full cup of something warm and sweet smelling in his hands. Its scent mingling with the smoke and the taste of blood that isn't there.

A voice, hoarse from speaking for so long, reading a book. Pausing every now and then to drink from its own cup. He tries to follow the story between the moments of cold certain _ending_. Whenever the room is once again clear in his vision, and the sound is no longer coming from a tunnel far away.

A world where everybody has their soul outside of them. Sheut? Ka? He was never as learned on the details of those matters as he should've been. He thought he had time. 

Seto doesn't appear to share his need to think about or try to understand the past. But he tries to help. It's a good choice of story. When he can keep track.

“Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out.” 

His eyes stay fixedly looking at their spot on the sheets as the noise fades away and he can feel the cold overtake him again.

And again. And again.

  


* * *

  


Atem memorises directions. Left, right, third door, fifth door. Looking for something that’s so important, but he can’t remember. Traps he nearly falls into time and again as if they were designed just for him.

He barely remembers a time before walking. Remnants of childish games half broken in a corner all there is to tell him he once had a life beyond this. 

He feels like he’s being watched by a familiar set of eyes. Then sure enough there follows a mumbling voice, echoing through the halls in a language he barely understands. The labyrinth moves and shifts. Joins and reorders. But like always, he finds himself at a gap he cannot jump. The young boy sighs in frustrations and the walls to either side of him fall away again, until with a lurch the floor drops away and he wakes with a gasp.

He knows a moment of crushing loneliness, even with Seto’s soft snoring beside him. 

Seto; who would stay up all night with him, even if they’ve been alternating dark nights for almost a week.

Seto; who wouldn’t think twice about calling Yugi at 3am, just so Atem can hear his voice. 

Seto; high-powered CEO, top duelist, the brightest mind in a generation. Maker of tea, stroker of backs, dreamer of horrors, who holds on tight and does not leave.

No, he definitely isn’t alone.

His racing heart settles, his eyes drift shut once more, and he sleeps.

  



End file.
